


falling stars in the day sky

by orphan_account



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kelley O’Hara’s fingertips know two of Hope’s three tattoos almost better than Hope herself does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	falling stars in the day sky

**Author's Note:**

> Naturally, someone had to do something after the post-game pictures from the first game against South Korea. beyond that, I really don't know why this happened or what this is, but Kelley O'Hara is to blame.

Missing the game against Canada had eaten away at her—she would have loved to stand in the net and hear the crowd roaring against her—and a half a game and her two decent saves against South Korea just weren’t enough to make up for four months of sitting in the stands. A win was a win, though. Hope walked throughout the post-game huddle, congratulating her teammates and letting their good spirits lift her own, until she arrived at Carli’s side.

“Look at you, Grandma,” Carli said with a grin, “Should I start raising money for hip replacements after those saves?”

Hope scoffed at her. “You’re two weeks older than me, you’re still the captain of the old ladies club. It’s gonna be me pushing you in a wheelchair, not the other way around.”

“Whatever, I scored a goal tonight and you made two saves. We’re the best grandmas out here.”

Her worries and tension from the game crumbling away instantly, Hope threw her head back in laughter. “And none of these young pups better forget that. Wrist and shoulder injuries be damned.”

Carli smirked and nodded, but before she could say anything else, Alex interrupted them with a “good game” and a question for Carli about a particular play; Carli gravitated toward the forward, leaving Hope standing alone to scan the stadium.

For a moment, at least.

“Did I honestly hear Carli badmouthing us young’uns?” Hope turned to see Kelley, dressed in street clothes, striding toward her with sparkling eyes. “I’m pretty sure she just upgraded from a Blackberry like a week ago.”

“Because the iPhone is for young hipsters like you,” she replied coolly.

Skipping jovially forward, Kelley brushed off the invitation for their usual verbal sparring match—surprising, given that she had been snarky all week, probably in celebration of Hope’s return. Instead, she asked, “So how did it feel to be back? Rusty?”

“You really think I would ever get rusty, O’Hara?”

“I don’t know…you kinda scared me on that second save.”

Hope stared and Kelley could only keep up the façade for a few seconds before she burst into laughter, giving Hope a light shove. “Relax, I was kidding. I knew you had it before she even shot, you always do. Total faith. Is it good to be back though?”

“Fantastic. I missed it.”

Kelley smiled at the clear understatement and nodded in response and Hope saw her gaze shift to the field, almost wistfully. She had missed a shot at Canada too, and hadn’t even been on the bench tonight. League play was one thing but Hope understood the yearning to have the national team crest over her heart—even missing two games hurt. She gave Kelley a light return shove to regain her attention.

“You’ll be out here Thursday, it’ll be nice to have you on the field with me again,” she said.

A tender look of gratitude replaced the wistfulness in Kelley’s eyes. She smiled, quickly, then dropped her eyes and reached out to touch Hope’s newly healed wrist. “How did the wrist feel, bionic woman?”

“Not bad.” She didn’t bother to show the same bravado she’d worn the entire camp.  “I was nervous, but everything worked out.”

Kelley’s smile didn’t fade as she looked back up at Hope, nor did her fingers leave Hope’s wrist, instead ghosting over the skin and the thin scar. Hope maintained her gaze without flinching or pulling away, like she would have with anyone else—she had long since gotten used to Kelley’s touchiness, her need to always be sitting on someone’s lap during dinners or team meetings, the way she clung in her sleep—even after so long apart, Hope wasn’t fazed by something as innocent and absent-minded as fingertips on her wrist. Kelley probably didn’t even realize what she was doing.

Kelley broke their eye-contact first and they both looked down; the younger woman had left the scar and now traced her fingers over Hope’s tattoo, deliberately, repeating again and again the curves of the letters— _Solo_. The way she used to, with all the same reverence. And in that moment, they stood completely alone, the only two people in a stadium of nearly 15,000.

Hope took a deep breath.

The moment ended when she exhaled and Kelley pulled away, laughing smile on her face as if it had never vanished in the few seconds she touched Hope’s skin. Hope tried, but she couldn’t affix a matching smile to her face quickly enough to keep up.

“Of course it worked out. You’re Hope Solo, it always works out,” Kelley said with a laugh. The sounds of the stadium filled their conversation again and Kelley cast a glance over her shoulder at the rest of their teammates. “But anyway. No practice tomorrow…I know you’re a grandma and all, but do you think you can make it out with the girls tonight?”

Hope couldn’t stop the smirk from breaking over her face. “Remember the last time you tried to out-drink me?”

“Not at all, but I’m sure I won.”

“You’re lucky we can’t get too drunk at camp. All bets are off once we’re out, though.”

* * *

That night, at dinner and at the casual, out-of-the-way bar they all ended up at later, there was far too much to celebrate to allow the team to stay sober: a toast to the win, one for each of the goals, a drink for Boston, a shot each for Morgan’s first cap, Mewis’s first goal, Hope’s return, and Abby getting them all one step closer to never hearing the term “Chasing Mia” again.

As Kelley ordered her fourth beer during a lull in the action, as Abby and Megan tried to come up with more things to drink to, Hope appeared next to her, leaning against the bar.

“How many drinks is that now?” she asked, voice barely audible above the crowd so that Kelley had to lean in. “Four beers, a few glasses of wine, some vodka? I thought we weren’t having a drinking contest.”

“I’m fine, I’m Irish. You don’t have such an advantage,” Kelley replied smoothly. Her eyes twinkled as she took a sip of her drink.

Hope rolled her eyes but beckoned for another beer at the subtle challenge. “Except that I outweigh you by about twenty pounds.”

“So we’re on even ground, and I still end up beating you every time.”

“You clearly don’t remember those nights, then.”

In fact, Kelley did remember the last drinking contest, or at least the beginning of it. It was the most recent of many, a night in Los Angeles following a Victory Tour match. She remembered the glasses of champagne at dinner and how Hope had abandoned her reserve somewhere around the fourth bottle they split, before they turned to vodka. She remembered how she had used the alcohol as an excuse to stumble into Hope’s arms and steady herself against her waist as she stood against the bar.

The rest was a blur, but it was the next morning that mattered anyways: waking up to those same arms around her body and the purple-red trail of bruises that Hope’s mouth had left down Kelley’s torso.

All chances of those blurry nights ended sometime in November, but that didn’t mean they didn’t haunt her every time she tasted champagne.

She made the mistake of glancing at hope as she took another gulp of beer; the keeper’s eyes flashed just a shade too dark, and instantly Kelley read the same thoughts in her gaze, the same half-memories, the same tastes on her tongue,  and she knew they had both returned to the same night.

“Taxis are here!” Christie ended the moment by calling for their attention. “If you’re going back to the hotel, hop in the ones on the left. Anywhere else, take the ones on the right. And make sure you stay together!”

They had reached the point in these nights where their team splintered apart, some girls to the best club in the area, some back to bed at the hotel, some to another hole-in-the-wall bar. Normally Kelley would be with the first group—she had dressed the part, with a short dress that dipped low on her back—but when she looked back to Hope, whose eyes hadn’t left her, her decision was made.

* * *

By the time they made it back to the hotel, Kelley and Hope stood just this side of sober—the scent of Hope’s musky perfume was sharp in Kelley’s nose, and none of her features swam in an alcohol-induced haze—but this wasn’t another victory tour night, they didn’t need to blame anything on having too much to drink. Something nameless and far stronger than alcohol swirling deep in Kelley’s chest, in both of their chests, driving them forward, driving them together.

And perhaps because of that, when Hope led Kelley into the dark hotel room, her kiss was gentle. Hesitant. She offered no apology or excuse or explanation of their current situation, and Kelley didn’t need any of it. She just needed Hope, after so long without her. This was something deeper than what the used to have.

It was wrong. It didn’t make sense. But Kelley felt the strangest sense of calm when Hope’s hands found her jaw with a deftness that left her head spinning. No one else had ever had that effect. In response her hands settled low on the curve of Hope’s hips, feeling the skin there for the first time in months.

 It felt _right_. Not a drunken justification type of right. She felt natural pressed against Hope’s lips. She felt home.

The kiss deepened almost immediately and Kelley only had a half-second to appreciate the taste of peppermint instead of champagne in Hope’s mouth before the older woman dropped her hands from Kelley’s jaw to her hips, pulling her impossibly closer and leaving half-moon imprints with her fingernails and Kelley lost all conscious thought: Hope’s name filled her mind instead. Suddenly they were moving backward to the bed with the practiced fluidity of ballroom dancers, eyes shut in the darkness, moving on feel and intuition alone, until Hope sank down onto the foot of the bed and Kelley pulled herself onto her lap, knees on either side of her hips.

Her fingers tugged at the bottom of Hope’s silk top and the two women broke apart, their gasps for air filling the room; Kelley pulled Hope’s shirt over her head and Hope unclasped her bra to reveal the skin Kelley had been aching for for so long.

She dropped her hands to Hope’s stomach and her lips to her collarbone with a desperate sigh and Hope leaned back, tilting her head to the ceiling. Even her deep lungfuls of air didn’t palliate the dizzy light-headedness that Kelley’s lips on her neck caused.

For a few minutes, as she lovingly ran her fingers through Kelley’s hair, brushing it back from her face, she let Kelley reacquaint herself with her body—it had been too long to rush something like this, to waste the reverent re-discovery of old memories. But as soon as Kelley reached for the waistband of Hope’s jeans, the keeper stopped her.

“Your turn,” she muttered, wriggling out from beneath Kelley and retreating farther up the bed. Hope gave her dress a pointed look.

As Kelley scrambled to her feet to peel away her dress, Hope rolled over and lay on her stomach, resting on the pillow, skin tingling with warmth and need. It took only seconds for Kelley to slip back into bed with her, but rather than attempting to regain Hope’s attention or resume their pace, she instead glided over Hope’s bare back, supporting herself on one elbow as the other hand dragged up Hope’s spine and back down again, freezing against the butterfly and script tattoo on in the middle of her back.

_Persecuted But Not Destroyed; Cast Down But Not Forsaken._

All the frenetic energy of the moments before vanished in a heartbeat; Hope turned her head and watched Kelley press her lips to the tattoo reverently, keeping them there as if she could taste all the pain and loneliness that had gone into it, so that she could understand. Eyes closed, she traced the delicate lines of ink that made up the butterfly’s wings by memory, until Hope was humming at the sensation and Kelley kissed her way up Hope’s spine.

“This one is my favorite,” Kelley whispered when she reached the back of her neck; her breath raised goosebumps down Hope’s back and she let out an involuntary moan, arching into the bed. “You’re strong and beautiful and I will always believe that.”

Hope’s hands shook when she rolled over and grabbed the back of Kelley’s neck to pull her down into a bruising kiss, as if it would be the last time their lips would ever touch.

They kicked off any remaining clothing and skin hit skin like a match on a striking strip, igniting a fire that fueled their movements ever faster. Hope had never felt so suddenly vulnerable but she clung to Kelley, arms around her shoulders and her lips against her ear, whispering her name as Kelley’s hands found where they needed to be and the two women began to move together. It was a rhythm they had never touched, always too nervous or too furtive or too drunk, but now, with Kelley’s words _—“You’re beautiful and strong and I will always believe that”—_ echoing in her head and Kelley’s name the only thing on her lips, she rose higher and higher with every touch.

When Hope came, she sank her teeth down onto Kelley’s shoulder but her lips couldn’t mute the cry from her mouth, desperate and blissful at once. Her fingers curled into Kelley’s shoulder blades. Kelley pulled away just enough to watch her as she came down, but with none of the satisfaction that most lovers did; the sliver of light that entered the room from behind the window curtains reflected in Kelley’s eyes and hope could see a tenderness there, a beautiful grace in the amber eyes of someone seven years her junior, and she knew at that moment that no one would ever make her feel as _pure_ as Kelley O’Hara did.

* * *

Hours later, Kelley couldn’t understand how their bodies could still fit so well together after so long apart and so many obstacles between them; the more her mind tried to make sense of the feeling of the warm length of Hope’s body pressed against her own, the less she comprehended. She knew only that her head fit against bare Hope’s chest, just beneath her collarbone, as if the two women had been designed for one another. No one else would ever feel just right.

She could tell by the fact that Hope’s arm remained tight around her shoulders and her hand stayed sure on her hip, holding their bodies together, that Hope hadn’t yet fallen asleep, despite the hazy warmth of their shared body heat and their matching heartbeats. Kelley’s hand drifted from Hope’s stomach up to the center of her chest; she tapped her fingers softly to the slow drumbeat pressed against her ear.

“What are you doing?” Hope murmured after a moment.

Kelley didn’t respond right away, entranced with her fingers and Hope’s heartbeat.

“I like being here,” she said at last. Inexplicable longing and sadness filled her words.

It took even longer for Hope to respond. Finally, she lifted her hand from her stomach as well and placed it on top of Kelley’s on her chest, silencing the tapping, and kept it there. “You’re always here. Look at where your lips are right now.”

Lifting her head, Kelley saw the words of Hope’s tattoo she had been laying against; she hadn’t thought anything of it—she’d seen the third and most recent tattoo before— and she had been too tired to consider it this time when they had curled up together, limbs aching and sweat still drying on their skin. Now, however, her lips formed barely audible words as she read aloud.

_“Let us be like_

_Two falling stars in the day sky._

_Let no one know of our sublime beauty_

_As we hold hands with God_

_And burn_

_Into a sacred existence that defies -_

_That surpasses_

_Every description of ecstasy_

_And love.”_

“Like I said,” Hope murmured sleepily, as Kelley closed her eyes and touched her lips to the words, “I carry you with me, wherever we are. Right there.”

On her chest, their fingers intertwined, and the two women drifted off to dreamless sleep.


End file.
